


Puzzle with a Missing Piece

by littleluke



Category: 5 Seconds of Summer (Band)
Genre: Abuse, Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Alternate Universe - Boarding School, Angst, Borderline Personality Disorder, Depression, Drug Abuse, Drug Addiction, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Eventual Smut, Homophobia, Internalized Homophobia, M/M, Past Child Abuse, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Rape, Self Harm, Sexual Abuse, Sexuality Crisis, Statutory Rape, Suicidal Thoughts, Suicide Attempt, Victim Blaming, triggering content
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-08-20
Updated: 2015-11-20
Packaged: 2018-04-14 08:27:22
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,127
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4557657
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/littleluke/pseuds/littleluke
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ashton Irwin has just been granted an academic scholarship to Sydney's most illustrious boarding school - Concordia. He wasn't expecting it to be easy, trying to fit in with a bunch of stuck up rich kids when he's the complete opposite. But after being roomed with Luke Hemmings, the school's biggest homophobic jerk, he realises just how much of an understatement "it won't be easy" is.</p><p>Or, the one where Luke and Ashton are polar opposites, or so they assume.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Into the Fire

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is my first attempt at writing for this fandom, so I am terribly sorry if this is bad. I'd also like to stress that this is going to be extremely triggering, so please read the tags, I've tried to tag everything that I can think of that could possibly be triggering, and I'll do my best to add more tags as the story progresses if I think any new developments will be triggering. But so far there will be extremely graphic scenes that deal with self harm, drug use, suicide attempts, victim blaming, slightly graphic rape. I'll add warnings on each individual chapter that contains this content, because I cannot stress enough, this is going to be intense.

The incessant beeping of Ashton’s phone echoed throughout the otherwise quiet room. Groaning at the intrusive noise he absentmindedly stretched his arms out, feeling around the bed in search for the phone so that he could turn the alarm off, throw the thing halfway across the room, and go back to sleep.

After finding it underneath one of his pillows, he squinted his eyes at the screen and looked at the time – 7am. Why on earth was his alarm going off at 7am on a Sunday? He went to unlock the phone to turn the alarm off but stopped when he actually read the word that was flashing on the screen: **Today**.

Today – Ashton groaned as it all made sense now and he remembered why he was being awoken at 7am on a Sunday morning. Today was the day that he left home for boarding school.

Turning the alarm off, he set the phone down beside him and flopped onto his back and stared up at the ceiling. He was kind of excited to be going to boarding school, the thought of being able to better his education and make new friends was something he was really looking forward to, however, leaving his home, his mum and his brother and sister was something he definitely was not looking forward to at all.

His mum had reassured him thousands of times since he had received the acceptance letter granting him an academic scholarship, that she and his siblings would be fine on their own and that there was nothing to worry about. They’d miss him of course, but they didn’t want that getting in the way of Ashton having a shot at a better future.

Now, while he was looking forward to making new friends, he was also kind of worried at the same time that he wouldn’t. He had, against the suggestions of his mum, googled the school and looked at how much the fees were for non scholarship students. He’d then pretty much sat in shock for a good twenty or so minutes after reading the words: “$32,500 per semester, $65,000 per annum.”

These kids had parent’s rich enough to fork out $65,000 a year for their education. Ashton was beyond worried that he was not going to fit in at all with people from that kind of background. His mum was lucky to make even half of that in a year, and that was to live on, not use solely for his education. These kids had to have parents that were extremely well off, pretty much bathing in money, and Ashton wasn’t the kind to be stereotypical, but he was worried that most of them would be stuck up brats because of it.

He kind of wished that he had listened to his mum and not searched the school, because he was definitely regretting knowing this kind of information. Not only was he worried that they’d be arrogant brats, he was worried that he wouldn’t fit in with any of them, these kids would be from completely different backgrounds – would they even talk about the same things as people from his old high school did? Or would they all be talking about _rich people things_ – like the latest Ferrari model out that their parents would be buying them, or whether they would be spending their vacation time in the Hamptons or the Maldives. Ashton was just a kid from a small suburb in Sydney who had barely even crossed state borders let alone left the country to some exotic holiday destination.

Ashton had expressed these concerns with his mum, after he begrudgingly told her that he had, in fact, against her wishes, searched up the school and found out the fees. His mum was displeased at first, but then informed him that they had two separate sets of dorms, and that one was for scholarship students and the other was for full fee paying students.

Now, while at first this seemed like some sort of segregation, almost all of the students had expressed that they preferred it this way, and that they were happy with it like that. It allowed for students with similar circumstances to connect and make friends. Also, most of the students on academic scholarships were housed together, and that seemed to help with them being able to keep up good grades and focus on their schooling, as if they were in a dorm with full fee paying students they might be tempted to not study as often and let their grades slip – as a fair amount of the fee paying students tended to do.

That kind of put Ashton at ease knowing that at least he would be sharing a room with someone who wasn’t a stuck up rich kid, and that they had most likely gotten into the school the same way Ashton had, either on a sports or academic scholarship.

He was still beyond nervous at the whole change though; pretty much every aspect of his life would be flipped upside down. But he decided he’d spent enough time lying down thinking about it, so he dragged himself out of bed and headed off towards the bathroom to shower and get dressed.

20 minutes later and he was making his way downstairs to the smell of fresh coffee and eggs. He walked into the kitchen and was greeted with a plate of what looked to be his favourite type of omelette and a cup of coffee waiting for him, his mum must’ve heard him, known that he was awake and had gotten breakfast ready for him. She was currently standing at the sink with her back to him washing some pots and pans; presumably what was used to make the breakfast.

“Morning mum.” Ashton said taking a seat in front of the food at the counter, and taking a large gulp of the coffee.

“Ah, Ashton, you’re up.” Anne Marie said, turning around and giving her son a huge smile. “I made your favourite.”

Ashton smiled back at her, “I see that, thanks mum.” He said, grabbing a fork and gathering a piece of the omelette and shovelling it into his mouth.

As much as his mum wanted him to believe that she was happy and okay with him going off to boarding school, he knew that she was putting up a brave front for him, because she knew that if she was even slightly upset about him leaving and going off on his own, then he would decline the scholarship and stay with her. She didn’t want him doing that, she wanted him to further his education, to do well in life, and go off and make friends, but that didn’t mean she wasn’t going to miss him in the mean time.

“What time do we have to leave to get to the school?” Ashton asked, mouth half full with eggs.

“In about 30 or so minutes, your appointment with the director of academics is at 9am.”

Ashton glanced up at the clock on the wall, noting it was almost 8am. He gathered that the school must be around 20 to 30 minutes away, _at least that’s fairly close to home._

Ashton spent the remaining time talking with his mum, and his siblings as they made their way downstairs to spend the little remaining time that they had left with their brother.

Soon enough, it was reaching 8:30am and Ashton was growing more and more antsy about the thought of leaving. Once his belongings were packed into the car, he gave his siblings a hug and a kiss goodbye, told them that he would call them every chance he got to hear about their day, told them he’d miss them every second, and he tried not to break down crying whilst doing so.

It wasn’t until the car was pulling out of the driveway that he felt his eyes water with unshed tears as he looked back at his childhood home growing smaller and smaller as they drove away. The place that he had spent the last 16 years of his life growing and learning, all the memories, the good and the bad, and now he was off to a whole new _home_ , a whole new place to make memories in.

“Oh hunny, you’ll be fine, don’t cry now.” His mum said, having noticed the change in Ashton’s demeanour out of the corner of her eye. “You’ll be fine baby, and I’m sure that you’ll make lots of lovely new friends there.”

“But what if I don’t? What if they all hate me, it’s not going to be like normal school where I see them for a few hours a day and then get to come home to you. I’m stuck there living with them, what if they all hate me and I have to live with them? I’ll have to live with a bunch of people that hate me! Oh god, no mum. I don’t want to do this anymore. Let’s just turn around and go home.” Ashton noticed that he was on the verge of having a panic attack, something he hadn’t experienced in over a year now.

He’d experienced some bullying here and there during middle school and high school, but it was manageable because he could come home at the end of every day and not have to see them until tomorrow when he had gotten his strength back. But living with a bunch of kids who hated you and bullied you didn’t exactly seem like an experience that Ashton wanted to partake in anytime soon.

“Please mum let’s go home.” Tears were now streaming down Ashton’s face at the thought of it all.

“Ashton, hunny shh. Don’t be ridiculous. They’re not going to hate you.” Anne-Marie reached her arm over and placed it on Ashton’s knee, giving it a tight squeeze. “I bet most of these kids thought the exact same thing when they were granted a scholarship. You’ll be roomed with a bunch of smart, similar kids to yourself that are there to learn and do well. You’ll fit right in, I’m absolutely sure of it, you’ll make yourself lots of friends, sweetie, you’re going to be okay, shh now.”

Ashton just sniffled in response and placed his palm over his mum’s hand. “I’m going to miss you, Harry and Lauren as well. It’s going to be so different. What if you need me?”

“We’ll miss you too, of course we will, but we can talk on the phone as often as you like, and I hear you get weekend leave once a month. Please don’t think about how we’ll cope, we’ll be fine, we’ll get on. Just focus on doing well and getting into the universities that you have your eyes set on, this is a huge step in that direction. I just want the best for you sweets.”

Ashton squeezed his mum’s head in response and turned his head to look out the window. Signalling that he didn’t want the conversation to continue down the path it was going, instead he focused his attention on the trees and buildings that they were passing by. It wasn’t long before a multitude of buildings that were all grouped together came into vision and he assumed that was the school, meaning that they were finally here.

Anne-Marie parked the car in one of the visitor’s spots and looked over at Ashton, who was still intently looking out the window and had fixated his gaze onto a building that was labelled as B block. Ashton stared at the letter until his vision became blurry and the letter no longer resembled a letter, it wasn’t until he felt his mum squeeze his knee that he tore his eyes away from the building and focused on her face instead. He noticed he wasn’t the only one who had cried on the drive over.

“It’s time to go in now.” She said, giving his knee one final squeeze before unbuckling her seatbelt and getting out of the car.

Ashton took a deep breath and did the same, getting out of the car and looking over at the buildings that would now be his new home. He felt sick to his stomach, and could feel the familiar waves of anxiety wash over him as he followed his mum into the building labelled Administration.  _  
_

For some reason he couldn't shake the overwhelming dread he suddenly felt. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please, tell me what you think, I know this chapter is kind of boring and introductory, but it pretty much took me 4 months to write (shh I know) because I kept thinking it was terrible, and every time I got close to uploading it, I decided that it was in fact absolute rubbish, and I would scrap the entire thing, and rewrite it, and this process repeated so many times. But I think I am finally happy with this chapter, so please let me know what you think and if you'd actually like me to continue.
> 
> (I promise it won't take 4 months for the next chapter!)


	2. A/N

sorry not an update (or maybe not sorry?) i was just wondering if anyone actually wanted this to continue, i had the next chapter already finished but i didn't think anybody was actually following this and/or liked it so i forgot and never posted it? let me know!


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